Episode 494: Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Light Side Podcast

On the Overthinking It Podcast we tackle “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” from the light side of the force.

Ben Adams, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Richard Rosenbaum, and Matthew Wrather investigate Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Who even is the protagonist? How do Luke and Rey transcend their limitations? How does this world continue and revise the Star Wars universe?

Further Reading

About Matthew Wrather
Matthew Wrather started Overthinking It in 2008 with his smartest, funniest friends, and has hosted over 500 hours of podcasts on the site. An LA native, he is an actor and computer programmer, but has worked as a writer, tower bell-ringer, birthday party clown, poet, janitor, and call center manager. He also has a Twitter and a Tumblr.

7 Comments on “Episode 494: Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Light Side Podcast”

So I keep seeing people talking about Rey having the Jedi books, but is there a clear shot that shows this? I’ve only seen the movie once so maybe I missed it, but I thought that Yoda really does burn them (“kill the past” and all that). His line is something like “Rey already has all she needs”, which I interpreted as meaning she has the moral and character traits the Jedi religion is supposed to instill.

If I’m remembering correctly, there’s a shot at the end on the Falcon where someone (Rey?) is closing a drawer of some kind that has the books in them.

I think Yoda knows that she’s stolen them which is why he stops Luke from going back into the tree because he knows that Luke has to let go of everything that has been holding him back, including his sad devotion to that ancient religion, and learn his final lesson from his old master (while allowing the future of the galaxy’s force users to be reborn).

This might be a question more appropriate for the Dark Side podcast but is The Last Jedi a Game of Thrones solution to a Star Wars problem?

The deliberate baiting and switching, the death and sacrifice of important characters (both old and new), I’m sure there are more examples.

Rian Johnson looks like he’s deliberately taking a decidedly non-Star Warsian approach to this movie. Which I think explains some of the back lash because it doesn’t feel like a Star Wars movie in a lot of ways. Possibly Marvel’s influence (is bathos the right word?).

While listening to your podcast I thought that the Last Jedi and Return of the Jedi might not happen in the same universe. Maybe there is a Star Wars Multiverse where each set of movies take place in their own universe. I am not sure how much this was just kicking in my head or if you said something that inspired this thought.

Great points all round, couldn’t agree more, and the Dark Side was strong with me by the time the end credits on this thing rolled, mainly due to the film’s (at times over)statement of purpose being to subvert what we expect of a Star Wars movie while in fact really just turning around and rehashing, before ultimately resetting the basic tropes of the franchise: mustache(sideburn?) twirling space nazis giving one another congratulatory “gentlemen, to evil!” kinds of speeches while their massive, lumbering military aparatus proves pretty ineffective against the rebooted scrappy band of rebels. Also in our post Hunger Games world, I just don’t see well-coifed purple hair working on an anti-imperial resistance figure.

PS. Genosha’s X-Men, no? I think the name of the clone planet from the lovely prequels pre-figured this film, “Camino Royale.”

The thing about Holdo not telling Poe the plan is a little more than just “How dumb to not tell him” After all, they knew that Snoke was tracking them through hyperspace somehow, which could well have meant there was a spy aboard. And her primary experience with Poe is “He just cost us a whole bomber wing, violated orders, and got demoted” why on earth should she trust him with the plan?